


Beat the Champ - An Ode to Lou Roseheart

by chicagotime



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Nostalgia, The Mountain Goats, Violence, Wrestling, beat the champ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27921577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicagotime/pseuds/chicagotime
Summary: Lou Roseheart is a wrestler at heart. Here, she recounts her glory days.Each chapter is based on a song from my favourite album Beat the Champ from the Mountain Goats, which is conveniently about wrestling.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	1. Southwestern Territory

**Author's Note:**

> Opening with my favourite song on the album. The nostalgia is... something else.

Lou Roseheart suplexes a woman in a bright lime leotard, and she’s having the time of her life.

The blood is roaring in her ears as she feels her opponent - no, her _enemy_ \- squirm desperately beneath her, trying to find something, anything, she can use to her advantage. But Lou knows she’s wasting her time.

“8! 9! 10!” Clang!

Lou springs back, landing on her feet like a bipedal cat. She sees her enemy, clenches her fists, hears the bell, feels the audience’s praise, climbs the pole. She jumps - 

And she opens her eyes. She’s still on the plane, destination unimportant and uninteresting and dumb and stupid and just… don’t ask. Ok? Don’t ask. Everyone else is asleep, because of course they are, just look at the sky, it’s pitch black, even the air hostesses are asleep, she can see them from here.

She takes a deep breath, slithers a limp hand to the backpack under her seat, and takes out a small ringed notebook with minimal effort. The cover looks less faded than it has any right to be after all these years, signatures of people long gone smothering the apple green beneath, competing for space with stickers of cacti and butterflies and a weird old wizard and a feather boa and Prince and countless other objects and symbols, each of them complete with their own faint scratches. Lou traces over a few with her finger, taking care to avoid anything near the top of the cover, where someone decided to announce to everyone, with the best cursive they had, that this book belonged to _______ of the _______, and is now under the ownership of Louise Roseheart. The second half of Louise has a single line through it, made by a pencil and a lot of emotions. Lou wishes it wasn’t there.

She places a hand on the notebook, covering countless memories, looks out the window, and tries to remember better ones. She can, and they’re the same as they’ve ever been. They have to be.

Lou Roseheart stares out the window, and remembers the days when she was great.


	2. The Legend of Chavo Guerrero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou’s Origin story (aka I have an excuse to make Lou Arab)

A young Louise ‘Lou-Lou’ As-Saif sits in front of a small TV in the middle of the night, legs criss-cross applesauce and eyes wide as she takes in this week’s match.

Fridays are Hawaii Hellnights, where the same wrestlers that appear every night wear tropical outfits and trays of tropical drinks are placed invitingly on tables next to the ring. This is also the only time that Lou is allowed to stay up late enough to catch the wrestling, on a channel so small there aren’t even any commercials. She shuffles closer so she can hear the babble of the data commentator and the roar of the colour commentator over the cacophony of audience reactions.

Finally, she appears, dressed in a leotard of dancing flames with a rose embroidered on the chest and pictures of palm trees taped to the knees in a last-minute attempt to make her seem remotely tropical. Her hair, a mass of thick brown curls, cascades down her back. Her hands are on her hips and heroic music that is definitely royalty-free (but who cares, really?) echoes behind her. She is clearly a protagonist, and that’s why Louise loves her.

Rosa Garcia, as the colour commentator yells into their mic, walks up to the ring with a confidence only she can have. She hasn’t even said anything, yet the audience goes wild. The commentators go wild. Louise goes wild. She climbs into the ring and takes a good minute to open her arms to the crowd, absorbing their love, their adoration. Louise tries to will her feelings into Rosa. It probably works.

And then the villain walks in. Royalty-free music, untouched by the demons of copyright claims, heralds a woman wearing a button-down shirt, trousers of cloth, and suspenders. Atop her head rests a crown of acid green islands that seem to wilt on her head. The audience boos, and so does Louise, screaming her disapproval for a few seconds before quickly hushing herself to avoid waking anyone up. The colour commentator screams her name too, but it’s not important. She is nothing. She will fall.

The bell dings, and the fight starts. A flurry of elbows and knees and oohs and aahs fly out of the TV and threaten to hit Louise in the face as she watches in awe, tiny fists clenched on her knees as she stares at Rosa, face lit up by sweat and blinding lights and just a hint of blood coming out of her nose. For just a second, Rosa stares back.

And that’s when Louise knows what she wants to do for the rest of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: As-Saif roughly translates to ‘Of the Summer’ and Lou-Lou means pearl in Arabic.


	3. Foreign Object

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou goes wild.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Graphic Depiction of Violence (blood mention, someone gets stabbed in the eye).

A blood-soaked Lou Roseheart sneers at her opponent, swallowing a mouthful of blood and unidentifiable lumps of human.

It’s the middle of a match, and the other person, someone she doesn’t care about and doesn’t matter because she doesn’t give a fuck about them, is still standing, even though they have a bite taken out of them. But again, they don’t matter. She blows kisses at the audience with blood-stained lips, and they respond with a noise that feeds her more, pulls the veil of red further over her eyes. She’s losing, and she knows it, and she knows what to do.

From her leotard of burning blue flames, she takes out a Foreign Object, It’s sharp enough to do the job, and unidentifiable enough that it qualifies as a Foreign Object. She tucks it into her sleeve so it hugs her hand like a drunk friend after closing hours.

The bell dings, and she squats low to the ground, pacing around her opponent like a hyena, waiting for an opening. Her opponent, for their part, does something that means the Object can’t be used right now. The details are as unimportant as they are.

They continue like this for a while, wary of each other. The audience quickly transitions from silence to boos. Lou doesn’t care, because - 

There it is. The opening.

She strikes.

The Object stabs the eye, darting in and out of her sleeve like a snake. The opponent falls to the ground, clutching their tear-filled eye. Lou pounces, making sure she’s facing away from the camera as the bites and scratches and punches and claws rain down on her opponent, her hands moving on their own, even when the referee pulls her away and the resident nurse rushes towards them and the blood-spattered audience cheers and roars and screams her name and one of the people upstairs says something about a Foreign Object and all she wants to do is laugh. But she keeps it professional, mentally tapes her mouth shut, and bows at her audience, for she has Won.

Her Foreign Object bows with her.


	4. Animal Mask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou makes a friend.

This is a cage match. But not one of those fancy ones that they’ll show 20 years in the future, where the metal is shining and the cage is tall and sturdy and everything is… _scripted._ No, here in the middle of nowhere, the cage is seven feet high, metal showing its rust in places where it isn’t coated in dried blood and thin black paint. And that’s just how Lou likes it. It lets the audience know what they’re in for: a good old-fashioned show.

In a green leotard covered in swirling vines and thorns at the bottom, slithering up to produces bright red roses on her shoulders and chest, Lou Roseheart ducks and swerves and dodges, the canvas battlefield in front of her full of wrestlers of all kinds throwing punches at each other like they just insulted each other’s mothers and screwed each other’s wives at the same time. They try hitting her too, but no-one hits Lou Roseheart.

Then, suddenly, she feels a gust of air slide past her cheek, and she turns around to see what she can only describe as a human brick run towards a cowering frog, their hands clutching the edge of their mask, pulling it hard towards their neck. This won’t end well. She has to help.

She sprints, running, jumping, hurdling over collapsed bodies and extravagant costumes, before skidding in front of the frog, arms spread wide, eyes squeezed shut, head turned to the side.

She hears a rush of air, and then a FWOOM, as brick fist meets flesh ear.

Lou crashes into the frog, too stunned to move (holy hell how can someone hit so hard) for just a second, before springing back up, pulling them out of the way of the brick fist, which misses them, creating a crater in the wall. The brick, uninterested in hard-to-catch meat, turns around and lumbers away.

She shakes her head like a dog, hoping the static will pour out of her ear. It doesn’t go away.

Both of them start to apologize profusely to each other, then says no, you don’t have to apologize, no really, no it’s ok, I’m sorry, strings of words tumbling out of their mouths and tangling each other up, before they both remember that this is a wrestling match and fall silent. They’re here to put on a show, not babble on about how _sorry_ they are. What do they look like, friends?

They stand, nod to each other, and run back into the fray.


	5. Choked Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou throws a match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Choking is mentioned here, please skip this chapter if you aren’t comfortable with that!

The ring is ready. The audience is murmuring with excitement. And she’s ready to lose.

The woman in the frog mask stands next to her, spraying words about how this isn’t a good idea, what if she gets too hurt this time, it’s not worth it -

Babe, Lou says. It’ll be fine. Trust me.

The frog backs off reluctantly, and Lou climbs into the ring, green and red leotard sparkling like a glitter-coated disco ball. The opponent, a tall woman wearing a Victorian swimsuit, sneers. Lou scowls back. She wishes she didn’t have to lose to someone with a gimmick this bad, but it is what it is.

The referee says something Lou’s heard a hundred times before, about a good clean fight and the honor of the match and no spitting, fighting, or lollygagging or something. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the ringside nurse setting up the oxygen tent, and a sign declaring that a match is here today, right now. There’s no official name for this one, but regulars in the audience call it ‘Choked Out’. Newcomers are about to find out why.

She shakes hands with the wrestler, refusing to meet her gaze. She can feel her gaze burning into her forehead. She doesn’t care.

The bell rings. The match starts.

The Victorian wrestler lunges for Lou, arm swinging to the right. Lou decides to dodge this one, to the delight of the audience, who have been hoping for a comeback from Lou for weeks. This dance of lunging and dodging continues for a while as she contemplates how long she wants to keep going like this, teasing the wrestler, drawing out the fight for as long as she can, until she sees the frog’s hopeful face. Naive. Radiant.

And Lou Roseheart stops fighting.

She gets pummeled by five furious fists, leaning into the last few, then falls to the canvas, waiting for the wrestler to follow. She does, swiftly grabbing Lou’s arms into a half-nelson before pulling her torso back and slamming it into the ground in a reverse suplex. The blood hums in Lou’s ears, and she fights back a smile as she waits for what will inevitably come next. The audience groans in anticipation.

And here it is, folks, the arm sliding under her neck, pulling her head back like a hunter exposing the throat of a lion, before tightening, closing her windpipe in a chokehold. And our wrestler tonight has excellent technique, it seems, as Lou Roseheart’s throat seems to have closed completely! She is, in fact, Choked Out! One can only imagine how she feels…

As Lou’s narrative voice fades away, she feels her body become weightless, soul starting to soar into the sky, consciousness becoming one with the universe. As her vision fades, she can see the worried face of the nurse getting closer and closer, and she hopes the frog isn’t around to see her like this. Her mind goes blank, and she knows that her future will be just as bleak.

But hey, two hundred dollars is two hundred dollars.


	6. Heel Turn 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou makes a change.

Lou hits the ground. Again.

This is the seventeenth time this month. The sixth time this week. The second time today.

She feels the harsh, unforgiving foot of an asshole on her back, pinning her down. This is his first match, and he’s already the heel of the fucking century, spreading his arms wide and bragging to the audience (seriously, who gives a _monologue_ in the middle of a match? Who does that?) while beckoning to a brick man in a corner to bring him his chair.

She tries to roll away, but the heel’s heel is unforgiving, threatening to puncture her back and pop her like a balloon. She tries to punch, kick, do _anything_ to fight back. To have control again.

The brick hands the heel his steel chair. He takes it with glee. The audience starts to boo, because Lou is their babyface, their protagonist. She can’t lose to a cheater, a _heel_ like him. 

But Lou was paid to lose, and that is what she will do.

The heel lifts the chair, and WHAM! It crashes into her back, inches away from her head. She feels the pain seep into her body, and resists the urge to wince. The jeers from the audience become louder. The referee doesn’t start counting.

WHAM! The chair slams into her neck, forcing her head to move up in shock. A grunt slips out of her mouth, and she hopes the audience didn’t hear it. They start to boo louder. The referee remains ambivalent

WHAM! The chair hits her head. All she can see is stars, and all she can feel is pain, radiating from her head to her neck to her shoulders to her back and it _hurts_ and everything around her is muted but she has to stay down, she has to keep going - 

Wait.

Why is she doing this? 

Why is she doing any of this?

She’s spent years in the ring, being booked. Getting punched. Going down. She still enjoys it, of course she does, but not when she has to take hit after hit after hit just to earn enough to live. 

And this industry, this _fucking_ industry, forced her into a role that made her the ultimate loser. Sure, she gets the adoration. The fans. The fan club (she even has a fan club president, an earnest little geek if ever she saw one). But it puts her on a pedestal that she never asked for, that forces her to set a good example to her fans, that forces her to fit the narrative everyone else wants, that _forces_ her to _be in pain._

And she’s had enough.

The heel lifts his chair, and Lou Roseheart becomes a blur. She grabs his leg from behind her back, twists it sharply with her elbows, takes advantage of the chaos by grabbing his chair, lifting it high, and slamming it down onto that little shit’s fucking groin.

She raises the chair and slams it down. She lifts the chair and slams it down. She raises the chair and slams it down. Where are the cheers? She lifts the chair and slams it down. She’s winning, right? Isn’t that what they wanted? She raises the chair and slams it down. Is she even hitting him anymore? She can’t see past the red. She lifts the chair anyway.

And then she feels brick hands on her shoulders, and they’re touching her, and they shouldn’t be touching her, who the fuck do they think they are, they’re touching _Lou Roseheart_ , and she starts to move away, but they have her by the shoulder straps of her leotard, and she starts running until she hears a riiiiiip and she’s free for a few short seconds until brick arms curl around her torso and pin her to them, and she keeps struggling, but she knows she lost today.

Later, she realises that her only leotard, her green thorns and red roses, was destroyed. She starts designing another one. This time, she will wear shining flames of blue, and she will burn all those who dare touch her.


	7. Fire Editorial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou wins a match.

Lou walks through the curtain, and is met with an avalanche of boos. She spreads her arms wide to welcome them all. A bottle is thrown. It misses by a mile, but security is still on that guy like a shot.

She’s flanked by the frog, her frog, staring defiantly at the spectators, her green leotard and sunshine yellow stomach lighting up the room. She’s never had a stage name (or even an actual name, as far as Lou knows), but if she did, the audience would be yelling that instead of every insult under the sun with ‘frog’ crudely wedged in between every other word. She looks like she’s taking it well. Lou knows she isn’t.

They arrive at the ring, shattered bottles and perfectly fine popcorn for only two dollars a bag forming a trail behind them like rice at a wedding. The frog tries to say something to Lou, but neither of them can hear it, so she tries to hug her instead. Her hands get within touching distance before Lou grabs them with as much delicacy as someone with that much repressed rage can muster, which isn’t a lot right now. She slowly lifts them up and kisses each one, staring at the ground as she does so, before turning away. She doesn’t need to see the frog’s face right now. Her looks of concern always make her feel guilty, and she can’t feel that. She can’t afford to. 

For the first time, she’s booked to win.

As she clambers into the ring, her opponent, a man in a cheap suit and a wireless microphone, decides to demonstrate his gimmick now, and it’s stand-up. He’s literally just a stand-up comedian. He keeps making jokes about how she’s best friends with the frog, and that makes her cold-blooded. About how there was a fire a week ago in this town she’s never been to, this state she’s never lived in, and she has the audacity to come here wearing flames like she’s trying to offend people and look hot at the same time. About how she’s gone rogue now, can you believe that, everyone? She used to be such a _hero,_ but look at her now! One guy pissed her off, and suddenly she thinks she can do whatever she wants! He’d better wrap up before she goes full heel on him too!

The audience laughs, a mass of indistinguishable heads now she’s under the blindingly bright stage lights, all murmuring and shouting and whispering and screaming at the top of their lungs about her and her… friend, and the fires, and how she’s a firestarter so she’ll enjoy burning in hell, and how she’ll never be a hero again.

She takes a deep breath, takes in their hatred, and hears the bell clang.

Lou gets to work, Foreign Object proving to be an unnecessary friend that just keeps making an appearance. She can’t complain, though. It does a great job.

Hours later, in a cheap hotel, Lou Roseheart lies in bed with the woman she loves, and asks her if she’s still a good person, despite the bad persona. If she can balance the love for her and the anger for everyone else. If she can still be loved. If she can still be saved.

The frog doesn’t answer, of course, because she’s asleep, but Lou knows what she’d say. She’s always been an enabler. That’s why she’s still here.


	8. Stabbed To Death outside San Juan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou gets hurt.

A whisper of wind brushes its faint hands across Lou Roseheart’s back. She shakes it off. This is a plane, it must be the air conditioning.

A breeze caresses Lou’s neck as she gets in the taxi, and tells the driver she’s headed for San Juan. She puts it down to the weather. Puerto Rico is usually cold at this time of year, right?

A gust of cold air pinches Lou’s cheeks like an old aunt she hasn’t seen in months as she enters the dressing room. This is getting ridiculous, but she refuses to notice it this time. She has to be here, even if she had to sneak out without the frog noticing.

A frigid splash of water flies into Lou’s face as she finishes up in what this run-down shack of a stadium calls a bathroom, but is actually several toilets and showers crammed together in a grout-filled cage like an unhygienic Thanksgiving dinner between two warring bathroom appliances.

A thin sheen of sweat glistens on Lou’s clammy skin as she jostles her way through a crowd that has gathered in the bathroom for no reason at all.

Something happens.

Lou opens her eyes, and there’s pain. She breathes. There’s more pain. She feels the floor now. It’s cold. The pain gets worse. She can’t focus. Pain. She sees people moving around her. Pain. Is she groaning? She can’t tell. Pain. Nobody’s looking at her. Pain. Are they ignoring her? Pain.

Is she going to die here?

Pain.

She can’t.

Pain.

Focus.

.

Lou Roseheart, unconscious and bleeding, lies on the floor of a seedy bathroom in the middle of nowhere. The ever-present crowd parts for her like a stampede avoids a rock. Hours later, they leave, and janitors move in to clean up the mess they made. They call for an ambulance, and Lou is carried out by disgruntled doctors on a stretcher that groans in reluctance.

They carry her out of the stadium, and past a poster on the wall. It yells at thin air about a fight no one will ever see. The Fight of the Flaming Roses! A Once-In-A-Lifetime Match! Lou Roseheart VS Rose Garcia!

You Won’t Want To Miss It!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! I hope you’re doing well.


	9. Werewolf Gimmick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou burns.

Lou Roseheart slams open the doors and marches to the ring, coaches and reporters and the frog trailing behind her like ash in a forest fire. They chatter and chitter and murmur and whisper, but Lou does not care. A fire doesn’t have to care. It has no fear, no anger, no joy. All it has to do is burn, and hurt, and spread that hurt.

She clambers into the ring, her whole body tensed like a finely tuned string. She sees her opponent and openly scoffs. This guy? Really? He might as well be wearing a diaper and that little fucking baby toy they suck all the damn time. A dummy? Could be. Doesn’t matter. He’s so bad at his gimmick that he wouldn’t know what the word is. Look at him, all small and baby-faced and wet behind the ears and soft and easy to pummel - 

The bell rings. For a moment, Lou sees clearly. She sees the people around her, every angry expression, every dull beer bottle and cracked peanut shell and scrap of paper, hears every boo, smells all the shit around her.

But fires never really die. They just store energy elsewhere, waiting for the perfect moment to reignite and feed.

She sees the face of her fuel, and a spark relights the fire.

She lunges, arms outstretched, a flash of blue and white, and she claws at his face, his soft doughy gullible flaky good-for-nothing face that doesn’t deserve to have the life he has, that is only fit to keep the fire going inside her and nothing else.

She claws and scratches and only sees white. She doesn’t know where she is. She doesn’t need to. She fights and keeps fighting and feels the fire coursing through her veins - 

The bell rings again. The match is over, but the fire isn’t done.

She turns around and leaves the ring, then the changing rooms, then the stadium. Flames envelop her brain, feeding on her now. Her self-hatred, her insecurities. She needs to let it out.

Her fist hits the wall, and the fire subsides little, but not enough. She needs more.

She punches the wall again. She feels less pain this time. Not good enough.

Lou hits the wall. She starts to feel again, old memories retreating to the back of her mind, sounds and objects coming back into focus. It’s still not enough, but it’s a start. She lifts her other fist.

After an untold amount of time, the sun now rising over the makeshift stadium, Lou Roseheart opens a car door, knuckles still bloody, and gets in the car. The frog turns the key and starts to drive. Neither of them mentions how Lou turned up late, how she missed rehearsals, how she’s gained a reputation of just not caring, how she beats herself up for hours on end when she doesn’t need to.

They just drive, and their silence says more than they would ever dare to.


	10. Luna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lou sees fire.

Lou stares at the flames in her dressing room. They lick everything like a younger sibling with the last treat they know she likes, daring her to do something to it, anything, that would hurt it more than it hurt her.

It covers every corner of the room. 

It seeps into the posters covering every inch of the wall, depicting her in every angle, bright and blue, staring down her opponents. The posters quickly disintegrate, revealing older pictures of a young wrestler in green, bright red roses blooming on her shoulders.

It coats her table, ravaging what little she had on there. Small dolls and leaflets and roses and branded cigarette lighters melt into the table, quickly becoming small lumps, indistinguishable from the table itself.

It gleefully springs from the floor, reaching to the sky like the fingers of a devil that is eager to pull a god down to his level. It roars in Lou’s face now, coating her in a wave of heat that makes her sweat. It grows ever brighter, forcing her to squint, but she forces herself to stare back at it.

Her Foreign Object lies in the middle of the floor, surrounded by flame, yet completely unharmed.

Eventually, someone calls her name. She blinks, and the fire is gone. She asks what they want.

The person (her manager? She thinks it’s her manager) tells her that she can’t fight here anymore. She’s too much. The other wrestlers refuse to fight with her now. She has to go somewhere else. They’re sorry.

Lou mumbles something about it being fine, and walks into her changing room, closing the door behind her.


End file.
